A couple of nights ago I caught the end of a TV ‘news’ item about mammoths. Molecular biologists have managed to sequence the mammoth genome – the next thing, said the reporter breathlessly, will be bringing mammoths back to life…
Continue readingCategory: new science stories
unforseen consequences of megafaunal removal
It can be hard to predict the outcomes of human interference in an ecosystem, even when it’s done with the best of intentions. This paper looks at the unforseen consequences of removing large herbivorous mammals from part of an African savannah, & demonstrates just how complex ecosystem interactions can be.
Continue readingegg-eating foxes
Animals may put food away for a rainy day – or at least, for a time when supplies are in short supply. Squirrels do it, storing nuts in hollow trees or holes dug in the leaf litter. How many they find later is another matter! But I didn’t know that foxes are also into caching […]
Continue readingancient shaman’s burial site
This one’s really hot off the press – & even then lots of people have beaten me to it! Oh well. In the latest issue of PNAS, Leore Grosman & her colleagues describe the ornate & unusual burial of an elderly woman who lived 12,000 years ago in what is now Israel.
Continue readinglong-legged (weta) males have more s*x
Here’s a neat bit of research that I was alerted to while reading the newspaper: a team of scientists studying the Cook Strait giant weta (Deinacrida rugosa) found that smaller males with longer legs are much more successful in gaining copulations (Kelly et al. 2008). (There’s a lot of information & pictures on NZ soil invertebrates […]
Continue readingdiabetes, pigs, & xenotransplantation
I know from spending time with the Bio scholarship students at Hamilton Girls High that xenotransplantation is an issue that some of you might have discussed. It seems that ERV is also interested – not surprising given her focus on endogenous retroviruses. In her latest post, she says: Why the hell was I interested in […]
Continue readinga three-way symbiosis
Here’s a really interesting story that I picked up on while reading ERV’s blog. We hear about 2-way symbioses/mutualisms (fungus+alga & fungus+cyanobacterium in lichens, & the mycorrhizal relationship between plants & fungi) – but here’s something special: a three-way symbiosis between a fungus, a grass – & a virus (Marquez et al., 2008).
Continue readinga new voyage for the beagle
The Beagle Project aims to build a replica of HMS Beagle and retrace Darwin’s famous voyage. The intention is that this will inspire global audiences through unique public engagement and learning programmes, and original scientific research in evolutionary biology, biodiversity and climate change. I think it’s great! I’ve been keeping half an eye on the website, […]
Continue readingbig brains, c-sections, & evolution
A very quick one tonight (I’ve just got back from a Schol Bio session in Hawkes Bay & the brain’s not up to much!) – PZ Myers has an excellent post critiquing a paper that suggested that human evolution could be affected by the increasing incidence of caesarian deliveries. This is an idea that’s cropped up from time […]
Continue readinglife in the cambrian
I first read Stephen Jay Gould’s book, Wonderful Life, not long after it was first published in 1989. The book centres on the Burgess Shale, a wonderfully rich source of of different fossils (a Lagerstätte) from the Cambrian, around 530 million years ago. The Burgess Shale is unusual in that it contains an array of soft-bodied […]
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